Tag Archives: newsletter

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, May 17(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ). GBP/CHF Inflation data weakens Sterling. Yesterday saw the release of Consumer Price Index (CPI) data. CPI is a measure of inflation and yesterday we saw a rise from 2.3% to 2.7% month on month. Usually a rise in inflation is deemed as good for an economy, but on this occasion it is a worrying sign. The rapid rise is a direct result of the...

I was on Bloomberg’s Day Break with the team and guest Anne Lester from JP Morgan discussing oil and inflation. Oil prices had bounced back at the end of last week and were lifted further on news that Saudi Arabia and Russia were inclined to support extending output cuts not just until the end of the year, but through Q1 18. I make two points. First, that US yields seem to be largely decoupled from the oil prices. This...

UN experts estimate pesticides cause 200,000 deaths a year, 99% of which occur in developing countries (Keystone) In the wake of a Chinese takeover of the Swiss agribusiness group Syngenta, a Swiss advocacy group raises concerns about Switzerland’s regulatory role. Switzerland exports two powerful herbicides, atrazine and paraquat, to developing countries. However, these products, manufactured by Basel giant Syngenta,...

  Correlation vs. Causation A very good visual correlation between the yearly percentage change in the consumer price index (CPI) and the yearly percentage change in the price of oil seems to provide support to the popular thinking that future changes in price inflation in the US are likely to be set by the yearly growth rate in the price of oil (see first chart below). Gushing forth… a Union Oil Co. oil well sometime...

China’s trade statistics for April 2017 uniformly disappointed. They only did so, however, because expectations are being calibrated as if the current economy is actually different. It is instead merely swinging between bouts of contraction and low-grade growth, but so low-grade it really doesn’t qualify as growth. Positive numbers do get the mind racing, but since the end of 2011 there is almost a speed limit on how...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, May 16(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge FX Rates Dollar selling pressure emerged at the end of last week, partly in response to disappointing US economic data. This selling pressure carried over into yesterday’s activity. It appeared to have been trying to stabilize yesterday in the North American session. News that President Trump may have shared...

Switzerland will receive most of the money paid by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) to a man who provided the state with stolen Credit Suisse client data, it has been confirmed. The CDs of stolen data and now the spy affair have tested German-Swiss relations - Click to enlarge NRW’s finance ministry paid €2.5 million (CHF2.7 million) in February 2010 for the CD, which contained tax details of Credit...

Headlines Week May 15, 2017 The pro-European politician Macron has won the French elections. He is a politician that – similar to Hollande four years ago – promises economic improvements, more investment, more jobs. As opposed to Hollande, he also advocates limitations on salaries and less social protection for workers, to restore France’s competitiveness. Mostly probably he will fail – similar to his predecessor...

The average annual change in the WTI benchmark price was in April about 25%. That was still a sizable increase year-over-year, and just marginally less than March’s average of 33%. For calculated inflation rates, it represents the last of the base effects that have to this point made it appear as if economic improvement was possibly serious. CPI Changes On Energy, January 2016 - May 2017 - Click to enlarge Combined...

See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango.  The Problem with Mining If you can believe the screaming headline, one of the gurus behind one of the gold newsletters is going all-in to gold, buying a million dollars of mining shares. If (1) gold is set to explode to the upside, and (2) mining shares are geared to the gold price, then he stands to get seriously...